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Eva Heyman

February 13, 1931
—Oradea, Romania

The only child of a cosmopolitan Hungarian Jewish couple, Eva grew up in a city on the border between Romania and Hungary. Nearly one-fifth of the city's population was Jewish. Eva was a small child when her parents, Agi and Bela, divorced, and she went to live with her grandparents.

1933-39: After the divorce, Eva saw little of her mother, who remarried and moved to Budapest. She also rarely saw her father, who lived on the other side of the city. Eva lived with her grandmother and grandfather near the pharmacy that they owned. An Austrian governess helped care for her.

1940-44: When the Germans reached Budapest on March 19, 1944, Eva and her grandfather took a walk in Oradea's Bishop's Park but did not see any German soldiers. Six weeks later, the Germans arrived in Oradea, ordering Eva and her grandparents to pack and move to the ghetto. They waited three days until they were taken by truck to 20 Szacsat Street. Their new home was stripped of furniture and packed with families. Rules were posted on every house; to disobey meant death. On May 29, 1944, they heard they would be "resettled in the East."

In June 1944 Eva was deported to Auschwitz. She died there four months later on October 17, 1944. She was 13 years old.